If there is one person who was prepared to move most of her work online during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s Pranjal Jain. The Cornell University sophomore, who started organizing and advocating for causes at just 11 years old, has built an entire global community for women’s empowerment online. Global Girlhood is a digitally-based community aiming to expand the representation of women online through storytelling on their website and social media accounts. Through this group, women all over the world have a forum to write and share the stories of the inspiring women in their communities. And if you listen to Jain, she’ll tell you that digital organizing is the wave of the future. Below, she talks about her advocacy work and why we should all be global citizens.
On becoming an advocate
I was 11 or 12 years old when I first started organizing. At the time, I was experiencing cyberbullying, and my teachers and the school administration didn’t really know how to help me. I knew I wasn’t the only person facing this, so I was motivated to fill in that gap.
I created a curriculum about cyberbullying, and presented it to all of the health classes in my middle school. I also held a workshop at my local library. Then, I partnered with the then-district attorney of New York to further refine my curriculum, better understand how to mobilize young people, and get out the word around cyberbullying prevention.
On discovering the power of her voice
That same year, I wrote to the sitting president of the United States. We were learning about the presidency in our social studies class, and my teacher mentioned that you needed to be born in the US to become president. I wasn’t born here, and I couldn’t believe that I couldn’t be president! So I wrote to the president about why I believed in public service and how much I wanted to be president. I sent 100 letters to him to make sure he read them. Six months later, he responded! This made me recognize the power of my voice, and how I could use it to influence the world.
On developing Global Girlhood
I like to think of Global Girlhood as my love letter to the world. Growing up as a formerly undocumented South Asian immigrant, I felt like I never really saw women who looked like me, who had similar backgrounds as me, doing the kind of work I wanted to do.
I really wanted to redefine the approach to empowerment. Global Girlhood is a forum where women can share stories about the women who inspire them. Our writers go out into their local communities and interview women who inspire them. They usually connect over social media platforms. Actually, I’ve found the most benefit from LinkedIn. It helps me hone my skills and tell my story through a professional lens, and it allows me to connect to people I might not otherwise have access to. Any time I have a conference or talk, I'll go and look up everybody right away on LinkedIn, because I want to keep expanding my network and supporting other people too. I'm all for networking, and I feel like it's such a smart way to utilize LinkedIn.
Our writers and leadership team are all over the world, and it’s an amazing international community. We’re fostering a lot of intercultural dialogues and global citizenship, which I think is really lacking in Western curriculums. And, since I can share our articles on LinkedIn, it allows me to reach a global audience.
On staying organized
Global Girlhood wouldn’t exist without the help of tech—our entire system runs on Microsoft Excel! We have this gigantic spreadsheet saved in the cloud, which is how we gather our stories and collaborate in real-time to produce them. Since Global Girlhood has writers in all parts of the world, it is the tool that keeps us connected and makes sure we’re on track. We have multiple sheets within the one Excel document, so I can see everything that’s happening now and in the future.
On the future
It’s so much easier for people to connect now than when I first started on this mission. We can organize digitally, which helps build momentum for movements. This past election cycle, I was working for a city councilwoman as her digital media director. Especially during Coronavirus, the way we mobilized the “get out the vote” initiative and interacted with constituents was completely through digital media. People underestimate its power.
It’s also made movements more accessible. I’m sitting here in New York, and through Global Girlhood, I could be connecting with someone in China. That’s only possible because of technology. And I truly think that it’s through digital communication and collaboration that young people will pioneer global citizenship.
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